The most necessary, most difficult and principal thing in music, that is time.

I should like to know for what reason idleness is so popular with many young people that it is impossible to dissuade them from it either by words or by chastisements.

A bachelor, in my opinion, is only half alive.

Love guards the heart from the abyss.

People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.

It is when I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer.....that ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them.

I choose such notes that love one another.